Killed Killers (NaNoWriMo 2015)

Chapter Twenty Four

    Gem pulled a very surprised Ere towards the door.

    "Wait a second, is this going to be something that I should at least be dressed for?" She asked, pulling her wrist out of his hand, suddenly very self conscious about what she was wearing.

    "Hm, yeah, that would probably be a good idea." He responded, stepping back to let her run to her bathroom to change.

    She ran into her closet, sifting through the rows of shirts and pants, until she found a grey sweater and a pair of jeans. She slipped the clothes on and peered at herself in the bathroom mirror. The neckline of the sweater went a little below where Ere would have been comfortable, but she decided that it wouldn't be a problem. She walked back into the bedroom, allowing Gem a second to give her a once over.

    "Alright, time to go." He grabbed her wrist again and dragged her towards the door. She followed after him, mentally rolling her eyes. He pulled her down the stairs, her wrist firmly gripped in his hand

    The made their way through the castle, weaving in and out of different hallways until she found herself suddenly outside.

    "Alright, now you have to close your eyes and I'll lead you towards it, okay?" Gem asked, looking at her.

    "Okay, but if you run me into anything, so help me god I'll give you a bruise on your other cheek to match the one I already gave you." She joked, closing her eyes. She felt something brush against her face, and she flinched.

    "It's okay, I'm just going to cover your eyes with my hands to make sure that you're not peaking." Gem laughed softly behind her, and she tensed as she felt his arms go around her and his hands cover her eyes.

    "Alright, we're going to go forwards, okay?" She felt his chest pressing against her back as he began to walk slowly forwards. She stumbled forwards along with him, anything but graceful. She felt his chest shake behind her as he laughed at her clumsy motions, and she smacked him as best she could with closed eyes and the back of her hand. The only result that her light and misplaced smack seemed to have was to cause Gem to laugh harder.

The pair wandered down the pathway, and Ere felt Gem turning her so that she was heading to the left more.

"Just a little bit further." Gem murmured in her ear, and sure enough, a few seconds later, she felt him come to a stop behind her.

"Here we are. You ready to see it?" He asked, his hands remaining firmly on her closed eyes.

"Yeah, sure, why not." She teased, feigning boredom.

"Welcome to the best place on earth." Gem's hands disappeared from Ere's face and she opened her eyes, the sunlight stunning her for a second until she was able to regain her vision.

"Wow." Ere commented, looking around the landscape around her. She had opened her eyes to find herself in the middle of an elaborate garden. Flowers spread out from where she was standing in all directions, and climbing plants of all kinds covered garden walls that blocked her view from traveling any further. In the middle of all of the colors was a fountain, a yin and yang shaped rock. One of the paisley shapes was made so that it sloped downward from the inside of the sign, allowing a path for the water to trickle down into a small pond below. The other was raised, plain stone showing and in the center, a spout of fire shot out periodically, causing the water to make a hissing noise.

"This is so incredible!" She turned back to Gem, and found him smiling down at her with pride not too much different than that of a father showing his newborn child to his best friend.

"I love it here. It's my favorite place in this whole area and almost no one ever comes here because no one sees the value of a garden when we have the job that we do." Gem was beaming now, so happy that she liked the garden that it looked like his smile was about to jump off of his face and run away any second.

"How big is it?" She asked, turning back to the yin and yang fountain and watching as another shot of fire spurted out of the rock.

"It stretches for a square mile, although I think that the garden keepers have stretched the boundaries a little bit so that they could put in more flowers." He began to walk down a path away from Ere, putting his hands behind his back so that he looked like he was contemplating something serious. Ere followed slowly behind him, still gazing at the wonderful plants around her. They walked down the cobble stone path for a while more before Gem turned back to her.

"So you really do like it?" He asked, the look on his face tugging hard at Ere's heartstrings.

"I love it Gem. Is there any way that I can get permission to come out here on my own? Like, in my own free time?" She looked at him hopefully, not really expecting him to say yes but wishing for it anyways. She sighed when he shook his head no.

"They say that they don't want you to be let loose on your own until they okay it, which probably won't be for a good while. That also means that you're stuck with your tower room until they okay that as well." He gave her a pitying look before he turned back around and continued down the path.

They eventually reached a stone bench, and Gem turned and sat on it, casually folding his legs and throwing an arm over the back of the bench. Ere sat down beside him, squeezing closer to him for warmth. It was one of those days where although the sun is shining, it was anything but warm. She found herself wishing that she had brought a jacket. She felt Gem's arm drop from the back of the bench onto her shoulders, acting like a scarf and shielding her from the cold. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him turn his head to look at her, the arm that wasn't draped over her shoulders he used to brush the hair away from the side of her face. She turned her gaze back to the garden, not bothering to look at him.

Suddenly, his arm was gone from her shoulder. She looked over at him in surprise, only to find that he was on his feet in front of her, appraising her with a steely cold gaze.

"When did you get it?" He asked, and Ere stared at him with shock and confusion.

"I have no clue what you're talking about. Why are you so upset?" She reached a hand out to grab one of his wrists, but he jerked back quickly, before her fingers could brush against his skin.

"We need to go see Monica. She'll know what to do." He roughly reached down and grabbed her by the arm, yanking her to her feet.

"What the hell?" Ere yelled at him, trying to pull her arm out of his grasp, "Let go! You're hurting me! What are you doing?" Gem suddenly dropped her arm and  turned abruptly to face her, swinging around in a way that made it so that she almost ran into him.

"You really don't know, do you?" He whispered, so quietly that she almost missed it. She stared at him with the same expression on her face from before, still as confused as ever.

"I have no idea what the hell you're talking about, and you seriously need to cool it. I don't know what kind of joke you're trying to pull on me but it isn't funny and you're just scaring me. Stop." She crossed her arms protectively over her chest, taking a step back.

"Ere, you're mark is there. You have a mark now. It's just that-" He paused, swallowing, "Ere, it's red."

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